During this pandemic, there is a phrase being thrown around called "contact tracing." You may have heard of it briefly during a news broadcast about COVID-19, but it's not talked about much.
But it should be.
Apple and Google had teamed up to develop smartphone technology they say to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. The two are setting aside their normal rivalry to develop technology that will work across 3 billion iPhones and Androids around the world.
Traditional contact tracing is pretty labor-intensive. Health workers spend hours on the phone with infected people, going over where they have been and whom they have seen, attempting to track the spread of the disease. This new technology of tracing people's cell phones could supercharge those efforts.
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"For [contact tracers] to do their job, they have to identify who that person is so that they can pick up the phone, have the conversation and encourage them to take the steps that they want them to take so that they can stop spreading the disease," data tech startup co-founder, Jared Allgood, said. "We're trying to balance that ... with the need to protect user privacy."
There is even a call for people to take on contact tracer jobs.
Some city and state health departments are already seeking to fill thousands of these positions. In the position, a person can earn up to $65,000 per year — based on state populations and projected COVID-19 infection rates.
Contact tracing "is the best tool we have to manage this in an ongoing way and allow our economy to open up again," said Crystal Watson, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who recently co-authored a major report on public health's ongoing role in reopening America.
Watson estimates that the United States will need at least 100,000 workers trained in contact tracing across the nation, at a bare minimum, to keep COVID-19 at a manageable level.
It all sounds all good, right? Well, veteran tech entrepreneur Angela Benton of Streamlytics, says it could be bad for us Black folks.
According to her personal website, the technology added on to do high-tech contact tracing could lead to much less privacy in our communities. She eloquently breaks it down here:
"What Google and Apple are doing is using location data from your phones paired with COVID-19 status also stored on your phone to triangulate who may have possibly been exposed and infected," explains Benton on her website. "This is happening already in China and S. Korea. Google and Apple have the power to track 3 BILLION people on the planet. Their plan is to roll out in 2 phases: the first through an app. The second includes modifying each tech giant's operating systems to enable the data stored on the phone to be accessed. In both cases, the data will be transferred and accessed wirelessly. Many people have been asking me how the tech giants get a person's COVID status. Some are even writing it off and saying they will refuse to enter their status in their phone. But what most are not realizing is at the same time officials are discussing using immunity certificates. Immunity certificates and other health status certifications are already being used in Asia. Citizens show their status on their phone to get access into everyday life. Their status is often determined by who they have had access to, by way of location data on their phone, and/or if they have already been infected or not. This is all fair game in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus. However, with no federal privacy law in place in the United States it can get terrifying, pretty quickly, and especially for Black communities."
"I’m outlining the impact to the Black community in bullets in an effort to be as clear as possible so that you will understand the severity of this:"
- With Black communities being affected more, more Black people will be tracked. This means you, your friends, and/or your family.
- Left unregulated tracking can easily violate civil liberties that you have right now like:
Your freedom to come and go. Immunity certificates and other health status certificates will be akin to “Freedom Papers” that free slaves used to certify their status as free men in daily life.
Naturally, vaccinations will likely go out to those affected first and the most. This new digital contact tracing can, and likely will be, used to identify these people.
Because of higher infection and morbidity the Black community vaccines will likely go here first.
Vaccines are being fast-tracked and not going through the typical trial processes.
Vaccines that have not been thoroughly tested may be deployed to communities most affected first, Black communities. Any side effects will be felt by those communities first similar to vaccination testing during the Tuskegee Experiment.
Though Google and Apple are touting contact tracing as opt-in and voluntarily, during times of crisis what is often presented to us as optional is actually mandatory. For instance, the use of an app to get access to things you may need. With the support of the government behind them this is a very real possibility.
So what can we do?
Benton shares that we can begin to fight this by signing a petition that will be accompanied by a letter to members of congress demanding that laws surrounding this new way of contact tracing and data sharing adhere to just privacy laws.
